NGO perspective on DDR

Bart Klem and Pyt Douma’s The Struggle After Combat for the Dutch NGO Cordaid comprises three case studies of DDR, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone and DRC, with a synthesis study focusing on an angle rarely considered in scholarship, the role of NGOs.⁹⁵ The case studies offer good historical background and review the outcomes of the DDR programmes drawing from interviews with NGO and beneficiary

95 Bart Klem, Pyt Douma with Geirg Frerks, Geert Gompelman and Stefan van Laar, The Struggle After Combat: The Role of NGOs in DDR Processes, Cordaid, 2008

actors. The synthesis study considers DDR processes more broadly and how NGOs (national and international) have or can engage.

It considers the institutional contribution to the development of the theory of DDR reflected in a range of documents including OECD/DAC guidance on DDR 1997 in addition to its handbook on SSR (OECD/DAC 2007); DPKO guidelines on DDR 1999; various Secretary General Reports on DDR and the Brahimi Report 2000; GTZ et al handbook on DDR 2001; the Swedish Initiative on DDR report (SIDDR 2006); the NGO driven Cape Town Principles 1997 and through collaboration with the UN, the Paris Principles 2007 on children associated with armed groups and Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women Associated with armed groups.

It is noteworthy that a range of criticism of IDDRS is highlighted (Faltas 2004, Schramek 2003 and Pouligny 2004) including amongst other faults, the promotion of a cenralised approach with cantonment sites, absence of sensitivity to failed states and lacking flexibility to local diversities. The comment that “in some ways, this criticism seems premature,” considering that IDDRS was published in December 2006, is an understatement.⁹⁶

It does consider the difficulty in defining ‘success’ in DDR as such measure is dependent on perspective, and there are many. Three main perspectives are usefully considered.⁹⁷ i) Spoiler contingency, a security/military perspective that focuses on dealing directly with ex-combatants. ii) A transitional perspective focuses on socio-economic reintegration contributing to broader and longer-term development issues. iii) A transformational perspective sees DDR as taking a long-longer-term approach in “tackling the route causes of a conflict...” often social, political and economic exclusion...

addressing human security and justice. Irrespective of perspective, the measurement of success or failure in DDR is difficult as every DDR programme has elements of both, a perspective also considered by Isezaki and Shibuya later in the this dissertation.

In considering issues and controversies, the study draws on the foundations of the early scholars (Kingma and Seyers 2005, Colletta et al 2006, Berdal 2006) noting particularly the inter-dependency between the political, security and socio-economic spheres and the success of DDR. A admonishment offered is that “caution must be exercised not to use interpretations and approaches inspired by western discourse.”⁹⁸ This is a topical issue in considering heightened sensitivities concerning regional,

96 Ibid, p 9

97 Ibid, p 10

98 Ibid, p 13

religious and cultural values in global interventions with regional institutions (AU, ASEAN, Arab League, OAS, etc.) gaining capacity and responding to the threats of “globalisation.”

The synthesis study defines civil society and the NGO’s place in it, as:

a multiform entity of human relations, comprising formal and informal institutions, organisations, networks, groupings and individual actors at all levels of society that aim to protect or extend their interests, ideologies and identities...situated between the state, the market and the family... NGOs... are a [...] subsection of civil society.⁹⁹

Caution is advised against exercising an “overly western conception of civil society based on egalitarian and liberal state models” as are prevalent in Western society. Civil society may be co-opted by political interests to address foreign expectations, or on the other hand, aspects of violent struggle might genuinely be representative of civil society interests. This is a gray area that requires extreme conflict sensitivity. NGOs are categorized as “brokers, interlocutors and capacity builders;

international service providers; national service providers; CBOs and advocacy and watchdog organisations.” Some NGOs have a composite cross-section of these functions.

The section “NGOs in Development: Pressure from Above and Below” (pp18-20) is rich in relevance to the direction of this dissertation. Into the nineties, not everyone continued to view the activities of NGOs as “intrinsically good acts of altruism.” Scholars began to portray them as “part of the polity...

patrimonial politics and... economic systems,” and thus as “part of the problem as well as the solution...” with “practice driven by relations, organisational dynamics and cultural factors...” and

“policies merely used as a legitimizing discourse (Mosse 2004).”¹⁰⁰ The role of INGOs in particular, are contested from both above and below. Below complains about the frequent exclusion of recipient communities and constituencies in participation in the planning and implementation of INGO programmes with associated “insensitivity to local realities... limited downward accountability... and sustainability... rapidly revolving staff... elitism and wasting money on staff salaries and expensive four-wheel drive cars.” Donor governments and host governments heap on pressure from above. Host governments are frequently concerned about infringements of their sovereignty and increasing foreign NGO interference while donor governments are calling for greater “efficiency, effectiveness, policy relevance and sustainability.” Particularly in emergency relief and post-conflict environments, NGOs are seen to have become “in effect, contractors for hire,” often in competition with the private sector.

99 Ibid, p 17

100 Ibid. p 18

Duffield 2001, amongst others, notes that some large INGOs are seen to have become “no more than foreign policy instruments of Western states, or neo-imperial tools for fighting the ‘war on terror,’ and installing Western-style governments in poor countries.” Such a perspective is much contested particularly by some practitioners from the INGO sector citing how attempts to maintain professional autonomy have led to increasing tensions between INGOs and state.¹⁰¹

In reviewing the evolution of NGO engagement in violent conflict and security environments, “no-war-no-peace contexts,” the study notes how activities have moved beyond purely humanitarian interventions to include reconstruction, rehabilitation and peacebuilding:

... contemporary conflicts are typically multi-dimensional crises that require development, political and military interventions, donor governments have propagated integration or 3D approach (defence, development and diplomacy). Similarly, military doctrine has come to place major emphasis on civil-military cooperation, political affairs, reconstruction efforts and the importance of teaming up with NGOs, donor agencies, local civil society and government actors.¹⁰²

Many of these issues apply also to DDR; development, political and military, as an aspect of war-to-peace transition. “Even programmes that did not fulfill their objectives (mainly in DRC and DIAG) had major political, military and economic ramifications.”¹⁰³

4.5 DDR’s Ethnographic Turn...

As the focus of the early DDR programmes on security and conversion aspects of post-conflict stabilisation evolved to a broader focus on peacebuilding, socio-economic and political capacity-building and stabilisation, the realisation of the context specifity of post-conflict environments and the impact of socio-cultural aspects of that environment also evolved. The concept of Human Security arising in the mid-nineties pointed to people-centered considerations, leading to a new focus on the concept of community. The complexity and potential impact of external agency intervention in the community, particularly a community manifesting elements of the kind of considerable conflict that attracts intervention, needs analysis, respect and praxis... actions that address those considerations from the perspective of that community. This, in effect, implies, an approach of conflict sensitivity,

101 Ibid, p 19

102 Ibid, p 20

103 Ibid, p 23

internalising the response and minimizing the sense of intervention. Such an approach requires a deep understanding of the ethnography of the community, or the multiple communities to be addressed.

Conflict mapping at a national level has been a tool of the DDR planner and practitioner from the outset, a practice that could be undertaken effectively by the military/political scientist. Consideration of a more local community conflict-sensitivity was rarely undertaken systematically until the advent of Mary Anderson’s reporting on groundbreaking work by a number of international and national NGOs in communities in conflict in the late nineties, the Local Capacities for Peace Project, (LCPP) that gave birth to the Do No Harm Framework (DNH).¹⁰⁴ DNH required a more people-centered approach to aid and a deeper ethnographic knowledge and sensitivity.

DNH awareness aims to:

identify ways in which humanitarian or development assistance can be provided in a conflict setting so that, rather than worsening the conflict,

helps local people to disengage from conflict and develop systems for settling and to find ways to ease tensions... [and] promote peace through supporting local initiatives, capacities and actions...¹⁰⁵

Anderson 2007 offers a framework to provide a systematic method for mainstreaming DNH awareness into conflict or post-conflict assistance through identifying and addressing the ‘connectors’ and

‘dividers’ that contribute to the escalation and reduction of tensions within communities.¹⁰⁶

Bigdon and Korf 2004, The Role of Development Aid in Conflict Transformation: Facilitating Empowerment Processes and Community Building, drawing on DNH awareness, analyses in depth the theoretical aspects of conflict sensitivity by development agencies in assistance programmes, focusing attention on ethnographic considerations.¹⁰⁷ They note that peace cannot be imposed, but must be developed from within a society. Drawing from extensive literature (Hoffman 2004, Bush 1998, Ross &

Rothmann 1999), they stress the need for detailed analysis of the conflict context in order to develop “a methodology for the assessment and evaluation of peace and conflict impact that offers a framework for peacebuilding.” They focus on the value of Track III initiatives, conflict transformation that refers to initiatives in long-term peacebuilding efforts targeting outcomes, processes and structural changes:

104 Mary B. Anderson, Do No Harm: How Aid Supports Peace – or War, 1999, revised 2004, CDA.

105 Actalliance, “Guide on Community bases psychosocial Support” http://www.psychosocial.actalliance.org/default.aspx?di=65703 (accessed January 08 2013)

106 Mary B. Anderson, Do No Harm Workbook, Collaborative Learning Projects, Cambridge USA, 2007

107 Christine Bigdon and Benedict Korf, The Role of Development Aid in Conflict Transformation: Facilitating Empowerment Processes and Community Building, Berghof Research Center for Constructive Conflict Management, edition 2004 (first launched 2002), hppt://www.berghof-handbook.net (accessed January 8 2013)

that aim at overcoming revealed forms of direct, cultural and structural violence transforming unjust social relationships and promoting conditions that can create cooperative relationships.¹⁰⁸

Track III initiatives are typically implemented by grassroots organisations, local and international development agencies and NGOs, directly addressing those most affected by the conflict. They engage in local “training, capacity building and empowerment, trauma therapy, human rights, development work and humanitarian assistance.”¹⁰⁹ The concept shifts the environment from one of conflict management to one of local empowerment. While the logic of conflict management views the environment from the perspective of ‘conflict frames’ associated with resources, interests and identities; the logic of empowerment considers more deeply the frame of identity:

articulation and confrontation of individual and collective identities... [with]

their source in threats to or frustration of deeply rooted human needs such as dignity, recognition, safety, control purpose and efficacy (Azar 1990;

Burton 1990).¹¹⁰

Recognition and empowerment are key processes in conflict transformation with emphasis on bottom-up strategies and local ownership of the initiatives... that can generate local non-violent struggles for social justice and structural change.

Drawing on Robert Chambers 1994 on Rural Participative Appraisal (PRA)... and the development of coping mechanisms through the process of social mobilization (Sachitanandam 1996), it emphasises the importance of local participation in all aspects of conflict transformation.¹¹¹ While generally avoiding the language of Marxian Analysis, in considering empowerment approaches, the discourse distinctly takes on elements arising from the Theology of Liberation and options for the poor, particularly those detailed by Paulo Freire in his Pedagogy of the Oppressed... processes that he termed consciencisation and praxis.¹¹²[DM1]

Such considerations and now taken on board in the evolving theory of DDR that has moved on to a second generation; community security and CVR. An understanding of the socio-cultural and

108 Bigdon & Korf, Op cit

109 Track I, conflict settlement comprises of the “official and formal activities of diplomatic and government actors. Track II, conflict resolution concerns the process-orientated activities that aim to address underlying causes of direct, cultural and structural violence, typically addressed by non-government actors.

110 Bigdon & Korf, Op cit

111 Robert Chambers, “The Origins and Practice of Rural Participative Appraisal,” World Development XXII,7, pp. 953-969

112 Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Penguin, London, 1972

religious sensitivities of the ex-combatants and their communities is critical in designing all aspects of the programme. Knowledge of the conflict context and power relations within the community is indispensible in designing processes of reintegration and reconciliation. In developing aspects of local ownership and participation, attention is now paid to psychosocial status of both the ex-combatants and the community and to the socio-cultural environment as it relates to such deeply rooted aspects of identity as the gender perspective and masculinities, traditional power structures, generational relations, local coping mechanisms, belief systems and cultural norms.

Further, DDR planners and practitioners are conscious of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats associated with the concept of external agency as opposed to community based initiatives, and the significance of the relevant degree of either.